What Amazon Alexa devices are NOT!

 Regardless of what Amazon says, Amazon Alexa devices are NOT many of the things that Amazon Bills them to be nor what people may believe they are.

An Amazon Alexa Device is NOT a computer. It can do almost nothing on its own. In fact you will need an Android or iOS device to even really use it. 

It Can NOT play your local music library easily. It can however play your local music with a very convoluted set up that involves requiring an Internet connection to share your local music list. But note the requirement of Internet to play LOCAL music. 

It can NOT connect to your IPP printer as Amazon now claims, with the exception of newer Amazon enabled printers. At  first Amazon said that this works with IPP printers. Amazon launches Alexa Print, a way to print lists, recipes, games, & educational content using your voice (msn.com) That was exaggerated and slowly we began to see the phrase "MMDS enabled printers". Neither Google nor Bing seem to know what this MMDS protocol  is for printing as of this writing. Now we even see phrases like "select printers" and "Printers from\ the following manufacturers...". What a bunch of SALES PITCH HYPE! My Linux connected color laser printer is an IPP enabled printer. I can print from any Windows , Android, IOS or OSX device driverlessly by way of the Linux host . It does not however work for Amazon Echo Dot nor Fire TV Cube.

It is NOT capable of giving you any voice warning for an event on your network. For instance I wanted to send a message from my asterisk server saying restart was complete and asterisk is running, however there is no way to get Alexa to say this or anything like it. In order to do that Alexa must INITIATE the process.  

Alexa is NOT very secure. Most functions require "account linking" meaning that in order to use the "Alexa Compatible" power plugs you must link your Amazon Alexa account with  an account from the manufacturer of the power plugs. These accounts residing on and communicating over the Internet leaves a world of vulnerabilities to be explored and exploited, when in fact both of these device are on you home LAN  an need not be on the Internet at all

I know Jeff Bezos is a really rich (and selfish) guy  who misrepresents what he is selling you. This is the same guy who wants to take you into space. What are you not disclosing there Mr. Bozos? 

RCA (by Telefield) IP160s, IP170s, IP160, IP170 unlocking and review

I recently discovered the RCA IP IP170s and IP160s units were availabe very cheaply on the market. These phones are several years old but appear to be of decent quality and offer HD voice with the G722 protocol. 

Later I discovered that some, this with the "s", IP160s, and IP 170s, were locked to Broadview service. "Locked" in this case only means they have a password installed. I also found that some unlocked units were selling under the "Telefield" name

Here are sone model breakdowns

Locked models (sold for use with Broadvoice service) 
IP060s DECT Wireless handset/charger only
IP070s DECT Desk phone (needs only wired power) only
IP160s DECT wireless handset/charger with base
IP170s DECT Desk Phone with base

Unlocked models
IP060 DECT Wireless handset/charger only
IP070 DECT Desk phone (needs only wired power) only
IP160 DECT wireless handset/charger with base
IP170 DECT Desk Phone with base

The bases of the IP160/IP160s and IP170/170s may not appear identical however, I believe they are functionally identical.  

I started with the purchase of the IP170s which in short order was connected to my asterisk which makes USA and Canada calls by way of an Obi202 conneted to Google Voice. It also is the home of my primary incoming number of many years. I also use other providers with some additional USA and UK DIDs and global termination.

Searching around I had found no information on unlocking these units. It seems there was no real "unlocking" to be done. The quickstart manual included with my IP170s referred to the "password" for connecting the DECT desk handset to the base "if needed" , was "7227". To access the full programability of the DECT base I only needed to connect it to a network (IMPORTANT: I did this with Internet disconnected to avoid the unit from "calling home", and upgrading firmware and/or resetting a password) , then accessed the IP of the DECT base from a computer  web browser. I used "admin" as the user name and "7227" as the password and viola I was in and able to program it for my asterisk server.  The first thing I did was disable the provisioning features under Servicing>Advanced Upgrade, then clearing out the "URL" field, and setting 'Check New Config" field to "disabled" 

There is a document here that walks you through configuring an IP160s unit here:
https://www.elastix.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2016/01/RCA-IP160S_Phone_SetupGuide.pdf
THat guide refers to Elastix, but the part about configuring the IP160/IP160s/IP170/IP170s is the same

I then connected the handset to the base using the instructions in the quickstart guide. NOTE : I had issues with the display on my IP170s phone. I just kep trying and clicking "OK" on the phone, then heard a tone indi cateting pairing success.  After a few reboots of the phone the display began working . and has not failed since. Another user reports pairing issues here https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r29745462-Unlock-RCA-Telefield-IP160s-IP060s-Resolved that apparently he resolved. I did not have this issue. 

I have the following on good authority and it depends on the firmware version

Passwords:
00000000 (eight zeros)
00000 (five zeroes)
0000 (four zeros)
7227
"" (blank, no quotes)

The calls with the G722 CODEC seem to pass from the RCA phone system to asterisk to the Obi202 over the g722 codec flawlessly, as did calls from a Polycom SoundPoint 335 VoIP desk phone. On the calls to Google Voice, I am not certain if the call is maintained in the Obi202 and on to Google Voice as g722 CODEC. I suppose it is possible that the Obi202 is translating the CODEC, as it seems to have a lot of advanced features. I have also seen that voip.ms one of my favorite VoIP providers that I use also, is now supporting g722.

If I had one thing that I could hope for that would be the ability to get the RCA IP170s base to work with a trunk that is not registered (such as an IP auth) , as I wanted to bypass the asterisk completely and could have done 2 way IP auths between Obi202 and IP170s Base.  When I tried  it, the IP170s base  always showed "Unregistered" and handset displayed "No Service". It did allow me to make calls from the "unregistered" trunk but inbounds to the IP170s were not recognized.

I then ordered two IP060s handsets to add to the system. Considering I paid $20.00 for two handsets with free shipping, it was quaite a value.

Hardware Quality

The quality of the desk phone IP070/IP170s struck me as slightly inferior. It has a speakerphone that works very well.  It is lightweight , the buttons are hard plastic. It seems that many modern VoIP desk phones have gone the same way however, lightweight cheap feeloing plastic.  

The quality of the cordless phone IP060/IP160s is quite impressive.It has a headset jack, quality speakerphoneand belt clip. 

I was disappointed also with the limitations of the dial plan, but if dialing on hook is okay , this is not an issue. This and the fact that I must register an account , and can not IP auth the phones are my only complaints so far. 

When I factor in what these three phones cost me, just over $50.00,  it was a TREMENDOUS value for very high quality VoIP HD quality. It was past time for an upgrade of my mix n match VoIP phones from yesteryear, and I believe this will keep me happy for many years to come, even supporting the g722 CODEC. All items I purchased on ebay and had to use "Make Offer" but previously I had seen these same phones cheaper than I paid for them.  

Mark 

Mix and match Panasonic DECT Cordless phones

Recently while shopping at a second hand store I found what appeared to be a new set of two Panasonic cordless phones, or a NEW dual handset cordless phone. Upon further inspection the phones did look quite new in original packaging, with orignal documentation. The only issue was that one rechargable battery was missing.  Knowing they looked new and that I had a temporary need they were well worth the $9.99 I paid for them.

I made the purchase, took it home and connected it, and tested both handsets, although I was one battery short to use both handsets simultaneously. Both handsets were working, I was just one battery short.

A few days later I was at anoher shop and found a pretty white , new looking Panasonic handset of a different model, with charging base and 2 rechargable batteries in it. The price was $3.00 so I bought it at least for the batteries.  I took this home, charged it anf turned it on, and it was searching for a base. I then initiated the handset/base pairing process just to see if it would pair with my base, and it did! As Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!" I now had 3 compatible handsets, but stil one battery short!

Now curiosity was killing me so I borrowed a handset from a completely different model of Panasonic cordless phone and again it paired successfully to the base. 

The lesson here is that many of these Panasonic handsets share compatibility and need not be of the same model to pair. I am running four handsets, two of which are unique models from the others, all on one single base. 

How to test your fax machine in the 21st Century

Maintaining one of a small number of remaining Fax machines can be difficult when you need to debug or diagnose it. Other users of fax machines are less common every day making testing harder. Here are some resources that may be helpful: 

Using a Test fax line that will fax you back
HP offers a quick and easy fax test. Just send them a test fax and they will fax another back within minutes.

Here are instructions from their website:

Send a one page fax to 1-888-hpfaxme (1-888-473-2963).

When your fax is received by the HP Test Fax Service, we will generate a return fax to you within five minutes,  confirming that it received your fax. This verifies that you can both send and receive a fax. If you do not receive a return fax within a few minutes, there may be a problem with the configuration of your fax machine. Check your user manual that came with the  fax for proper setup and configuration.

Canon offers a similar service to the HP Test Fax Service above. That number is 855-392-2666.

Verify the fax sent is legible

To test the send functionality of your fax machine, send a one-page fax to 1-855-330-1239 (USA Toll Free) or 1-213-293-2943. When it’s finished transmitting, point your web browser to Fax Toy — it’s a web site that displays whatever is faxed to that number. If all works well, within a minute or so, your fax will appear on the page.

Send yourself a FREE FAX

The following are free services to quickly and easily send a fax to your fax machine/line.
These services are all different, however most have some method to send a fax for free. Some may require registraton.

https://www.myfax.com/free/

https://faxzero.com/

https://www.gotfreefax.com

Contact me with your USA Fax number
Maybe I can send you a fax as well as help test your ability to send. 

Google Voice , Obi202, Obi200, e911, and Faxing

I have held off for some time at getting an Obi200 which is the only "official" adapter for Google Voice. There are some web posts that tell one how to set up your asterisk (or other PBX, or IP Phone) for use with Google Voice through the Obi.  Yes asterisk still can be used directly without the Obi  but the instructions are not clear and relying on the community to get help does not work so well. It seems many elude to the "violation of TOS" meanwhile they themselves use it. Also any change on the part of Google could render such an asterisk configuration unusable as we have seen before. 

Recently I made the purchase of an Obi202, as the prices of the Obi200 had soared from $39.00 to just over $50 dollars now. I was able to find a New Obi202 on ebay with the "Make Offer" option. In the end, I figure I got a free second port on the Obi202 for the same price as the Obi200. 

The main difference in the Obi200 vs Obi202 is the number of phone ports and service providers that one can configure. The Obi202 has two phone ports while the Obi200 has just one. Recently I had purchaed a used Multi-function device that includes fax capabilities. That meant that suddenly, I found a new use for that second port, although in reality I may have been able to configure an Obi200 with the same services.  I now use , two Google Voice accounts and one account for asterisk.  One Google Voice number is for Voice and the other is for Fax. The asterisk account allows me to use any existing IP phones I already have with Google Voice. The Fax connects directly to the second phone port on the Obi. The First Phone port on the Obi is unused. 

For the last year or so, I have been running only text based asterisk on a Raspberry Pi3, previously I had run a Grandstream HT503 connected to a copper phone line. Now that I have returned to the USA I have gone pure VoIP, and as I have used the Google Voice number for years already, it seemed logical to use the free Google Voice service for my USA calling and faxing needs.

The initial setup of the Obi202 was super simple using the Obitalk portal, that is while using only two Google Accounts. Incorporating the asterisk was a little more complex. 

For 911 service I used GV911.com . It is $12.00 per year, per line and easy to implement from asterisk too. This is the only recurring coost in this set-up even if I make and receive calls all day.

At first I had some issues with Faxes and lowered the speed down to 14.4kbps on the fax machine. Later I found some settings in the Obi . Five of these settings seemed key in allowing me to set the Fax speed to 33.6kbps. 

Physical Interfaces > Phone 2 (or 1) settings

1 Disable call waiting (Checked)

2 Use for Fax Only (checked if using dedicated fax only)

3 Fax Detection Method (CNG or CED)

4 Detect Phone CED Phase Reversal (Checked)

5 Detect Network CED Phase reversal (Checked) 

As far as I can tell so far, I now have reliable Fax in and out at 33.6kbps on a free dedicaed Fax line .

The voice quality is also quite good and I can use all of my asterisk features like Spam call filters, and the like. I can choose to use asterisk voice mail or Google Voice voicemail. 

The $50 was money well spent and the Google Voice service is worth that, especially given how well it integrates to my existing asterisk with SIP protocol. 

 

Back to blogging on Blogspot!

 After some tie of bloggong here then on my own domains, I no longer have domains and have returned to blogging here on BlogSpot. 

Watch for upcoming tech related blog posts right here.

Mark

Simple AirPrint server for iPad, iPhone, Android, and Chrombook/Chromebox & LibreELEC too!

No matter what device you use printing is a necessay evil. If you try it Apple's way it can get pretty expensive buying a network direct printer to print from iOS.

This is not only for iOS, because the same solution fills the void in Android, Chromebook, and Chromebox too. If your printer is not compatible with OSX and you have an OSX machine this can also be useful to work-around that incompatibility.

Over the last several months I have tested a low cost Raspberry Pi 3 based print server. Although I use it mostly on Android, I have tested extensively from Chromebook as well.

My particular configuration used a $50 USD Raspberry Pi 3. The main trick is to ensure you have a printer with good linux driver support on the Raspberry Pi 3. Not all printers with Linux support have Linux drivers for Raspberry Pi 3. Many open source drivers are quite good though, and will work on Raspberry Pi.

Here is a good place to start checking printer compatibility:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers

Of course you can also check the printer manufacturer's web site

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) used in Linux now has all AirPrint functionality built in. It will act as a Go-between for AirPrint and your printer. 

Installing a Raspberry Pi 3 based print server is a fairly straightforward process. It is a process I will not detail here as there are many guides on the Internet already. Here I will tell you how this can also work for Android, & Chromebook/Chromebox

In iOS once the print server is configured the printer should appear as any AirPrint device

On Android 7.0 and up you can install either the CUPS printing or Mopria Print. Your printer need not have android support directly.  I prefer Mopria Print over CUPS as the interface is more refined.

On Chromebook or Chromebox, you can install the CUPS or IPP printer extension.

LibreELEC, with Kodi, you can install the CUPS or IPP printer extension. This install in the Crome browser making printing available from the browser.

If your printer was incompatible with OSX, it is now compatible with OSX, and driverless. One such example is th HP Color Laserjet CP1215. This printer has no Mac OSX drivers available. It does have very good Linux driver support. http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-Color_LaserJet_CP1215 and apparently is supported on Raspberry Pi 3 with those drivers. With the Raspberry Pi 3 between OSX and CP1215 you will have no issues printing although both Apple and HP will say you can not do it.

If you set up CUPS correctly you can even have Windows auto-install the drivers from the CUPS server. 

In any case  no matter what the mix of operating systems in your home or office you can use this method to work-around most any printer incompatibility with most an OS. In fact you can make a non OSX compatible printer OSX compatible! OSX and Windows will use any CUPS printer sending it generic PDF or Postscript data by way of the print server which the print server reformats for the printer.

It is fast cheap, reliable and far better than any stand-alone print server you buy.

While messing with the Raspberry Pi , you may also want to consider adding support for a scanner by way of SANE, or how about an Asterisk server to manage phone calls in the house? You want to transfer that call to the bedroom?

Aside from my Raspberry Pi 3 working as a print server it has been running as a scanner server and asterisk server. The scan server allows me to scan from Android, Windows, Linux or even using a web browser, all from the same scanner. As for Asterisk I am running 3 VoIP numbers in, a cellular network and a local fixed line. I get the advantage of least cost routing and have failover when the unreliable landline dies , as it sometimes does. 





 

How to write a SANE Backend when you have no idea how.

A couple of years ago I started to see if I could write something to make my wonderful Halo Magic Scanner and Ion Aircopy scanners work with linux. As these two scanners are identical, what works for one should work for the other.

What I developed over time was a web interface. An Interface that allowd me to scan from a web browser. It will even run on a Raspberry Pi. It will do image conversions to PDF, PNG, resize, crop, etc.

Then later I started seeing that there was a more standardized way of scanning appearing on the market. Apple calls it AirScan but it is eSCL.

After reviewing more about this protocol, it became obvious that this protocol hit far closer to home than learning a new programming language and learning how to write a SANE back-end. But, why for Dog's sakes was there no support for eSCL scanners in SANE? I did test a couple of projects that made claims but none were ready for prime-time.

Continuing with my web GUI project I continued writing PHP to emulate the eSCL protocol.

Months later I was successfully able to test from VueScan but still no joy from OSX nor the Mopria client.

Most recently I discovered sane-airscan https://github.com/alexpevzner/sane-airscan and thought I would give it a whirl. I figured if I was emulating the eSCL protocol adequately and there was now a Back-end for eSCL protocol on SANE , it should work. I knew I was 99% there after all.

Much to my surprise my eSCL protocol after minimal tweaking communicated perfectly with sane-airscan.

What this really means is that one can emulate a more standardized protocol by way of a simple web server and create SANE compatibility using sane-airscan , yea baby!

So together with the sane-airscan project we have added several new scanners to the SANE compatibility list.
 

Those compatible scanners are:

• ION AirCopy
• ION AirCopy E-Post Edition
• iScan Fly
• Halo Magic Scanner 
• Mustek iScan Air / S400W
• Century CPS-A4WF
• Transcription Patri Kun A4 Wi-Fi Portable Scanner 
• 転写パットリくん A4 Wi-Fiポータブルスキャナー

to get full SANE support on these scanners, you will need BOTH

https://github.com/markosjal/AirScan
https://github.com/alexpevzner/sane-airscan

I hope someone finds this post useful, but most of all I hope you enjoy your scanner using it with SANE.

 

Project- Classified Ads System

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Mark
May 14, 2010@6:58 am

Recently, Teknogeekz got involved in something that was somewhat out of the normal comfort zone, a Classified Advertising System for Banderenews.com. The system can be seen at www.pvshopper.com.

In the past they had manually posted all classifieds as HTML. As the demand for classified ads seemed to be growing, that task was becoming more and more time consuming.

We started with a low cost off the shelf script and have applied some customizations...

Free Calls to USA and Canada; Part 1

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: free phone calls, IPkall, SIP, VoIP, Voxalot — Mark

May 7, 2010 @ 9:38 pm

This is part 1 of a guide on how to get a free USA number from the city of your choice and to make free web activated phone calls to the USA and Canada. You also get free text messages to all cell phones in USA, Canada, and Mexico, advanced voice mail, and more.